8% belgian lager, Giraffes, mcdonalds & security

Unconfirmed police reports from Strasbourg suggest a 3.5 litre giraffe went missing from an Irish bar in the city centre at approximately 10pm following a happy hour promotion. A group were seen leaving the vicinity carrying what was described as "a giraffe with a coat on it" but sightings could not be confirmed by police sources.

Other reports speak of a dispute between hotel staff and guests at the up market ibis a short distance away regarding the official boundary of the hotel restaurant and reception, along with licensing hours. Security guards were called when foreign nationals tried to eat mcdonalds takeaways in the hotel restaurant despite being told that was prohibited. Suggestions they returned to their rooms fell on deaf ears when told they couldn't take drinks to their room. Ibis's "15 minute satisfaction guarantee" was also called into question when one guest was refused a €6 pint for over 15 minutes and was left feeling very unsatisfied. One hotel employee was quoted as saying "this is not normal".

Witness reports this morning speak of a mint condition 1996 UK registered renault espace, a limited edition uk registered mini cooper and a silver BMW estate leaving Strasbourg at speed.

At a press conference held this morning, police refused to confirm or deny if the above incidents were related. In other news mcdonalds and ibis are to carry out a joint audit of trays following a number going missing in the past 24hrs.

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Arrived in Strasbourg...

Getting on the Motorway out of Prague and seeing the satnav say 'next right turn in 295 miles' was a bit of killer, but 3 driver changes later we'd left czech republic (making sure to fill up with petrol just before the border) crossed Germany and over the Rhine into France. 

This is the longest day of driving but having nicked enough of breakfast from the hotel to we didn't have to stop for lunch and made good time, arriving in Strasbourg nice and early... Only to find the hotel bar is a bit pricey at £5 a pint! Lets go and find a cheaper local bar before the kitty runs out completely...

Intermittently intermittent wipers

At some point since the last rally the intermittent wiper setting intermittently stopped working... During the last leg of driving this afternoon they started working, and an even bigger bonus so did the hot air blower! All ross had to do was open the glovebox and fiddle around with things to get the Haynes Manual out and bingo it was fixed... Turns out it was a loose connection on one of the relays in the fusebox in the roof of the glovebox!

Status update: 1hr outside strasbourg, just leaving service station after driver swap.

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Prague

Just arrived in prague, well we arrived about 90mins ago but an accident made the last 1mile a complete nightmare! Definitely brimming the petrol tank on the way out, works out at under £1 a litre in Czech republic :)

While stopping for petrol at the first services after the border crossing we stumbled on a Market and thought we'd have a look around... The first stall we saw mainly sold clothes but did an interesting line in weaponry, featuring cs spray, knuckle dusters, knives and ninja stars. Then classic quote:

Ross: "look brad, they sell guns!"
Brad: "where?"
Ross: "there, at the back, next to the samurai swords..."

And the cars parked around made the espace look basically showroom, even with our DIY paintwork!!

Anyway it's 5.15pm here so time for a pint in the hotel bar...

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Arrived in Czech Republic

We've just crossed the border...

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Day 1 complete, arrived in Frankfurt

Just arrived in frankurt and enjoying a nice cold pint in the hotel bar... (trzing to tzpe on a german kezboard is verz confusing!!) The other two cars are at a different hotel so we're just waiting for them to get here before we go for a walk along the river to the beer festival we found on our doorstep this time last year. We had planned on uploading our nurburgring videos to youtube but the hotel doesnt have free wifi so we cba yet...

 

Probably be an early start tomorrow so we can maximise the amount of time we get in prague tomorrow night...

 

Sadly we've not got a river view this time, but then i dont plan on spending any time in the hotel room....

Laptime: 17:08.004

Well the official lap time was 17 minutes 08.004 seconds (w) for the espace, other teams to follow when we review the videos. Danny & Mike couldn't keep up me driving the espace, but mossy did the best, despite nearly loosing it at one point!!

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Thunder & Lightning

Well we're all sat metres from the start line at the nurburgring and there's full on thunder and lightning, accompanied by pouring rain! Hardly ideal racing weather so have decided not to bother with slicks but unsure to go for intermediates or full wet tyres...

We've got our 22 euro 1 lap ticket, stopwatch and video camera all set, watch this space for the laptimes!!

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Arrived in Eindhoven

Well the first day of travelling is over and we’ve made it to Eindhoven… The weather’s been gradually improving since we left the pouring rain of England and we’re now having a pint by the side of the pool, watching Mike and Danny take a swim.

Poor Katy’s stint of driving was round the Antwerp ring road, which with 7 lanes of merging traffic from both sides makes the M25 look like a country lane!

The receptionist has pointed us in the direction of the bus into town so we’ll probably be heading out for dinner and few drinks…

Welcome to Belgium

France done in 30mins, heading for first driver change in Belgium... The 'Track us' feature might be a bit intermittent, since i've already used a 10th of my data bundle I might have to update location every hour or so!

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Goodbye England

Just got on the eurotunnel, france here we come!

Hope the weather is better!!

Team names: confirmed

Taking part in Boomerang 2010 we have the following teams:

2010: An eSpace Odyssey
Two Profs & a Piano
MINI Moss

Updated plan: latest intel from Mossy is that he's got a spare wheel for the mini but it won't fit in the boot so it's being strapped to a back seat leaving room for a 'small person for the sake of their own comfort', I think that means Danny is getting a lift to Folkestone in the espace ;)

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Last minute packing list…

The following are required in at least one of the five countries we’re visiting:

1. Fire Extinguisher
2. Bulb Kit
3. Light Converter Strips
4. First Aid Kit
5. Vests (Yellow & Green)
6. Warning Triangle
7. MOT Certificate
8. Car Insurance
9. Vehicle Registration (V5)

Essentials

1. Driving Licence (Card & Paper counterpart)
2. Passport
3. EHIC Card
4. Euros

Other stuff we’re taking

1. 12v to Mains inverter (for charging phones, satnav, laptops, radios)
2. Digital & Video Camera (for the Nurburgring lap!)
3. Sat Nav
4. Phone Charger
5. European Map
6. Hotel Booking Reservations
7. 4x Walkie Talkies (plus spare batteries)
8. Laptop (for blogging)

Recommendations

1. Travel Insurance
2. European Breakdown cover
3. Spare set of car keys ;)

 

Can anyone thing of something I've missed? Let me know and I'll add to the above list(s)….

Team Names

Just realised we've not decided on team names for the two support vehicles! So Mossy, Danny, Mike, George what you gonna call yourselves?

We're "2010: An eSpace Odyssey"...

Clocks ticking boys...

P.s mossy, what's ur dads name?

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Czech Republic Advice

Since none of us have been to Prague before i thought i'd better double check my earlier research, and i think i've spotted a potential issue - you're meant to have GREEN hi-vis vests (and that's what i put on the main boomerang site here) so not sure why I/Ross thought it was Orange - oops!

Anyway the following is taken from the UK/US foreign office sites:


Czech Republic Entry Requirements:

• Passport should be valid for at least three months beyond the day you plan to finish your trip. 
• Every adult must carry identification at all times.

Driving in Czech Republic:

Road fatalities are occurring at an increasing rate in the Czech Republic, placing it amongst the most lethal places to drive in Europe. Main roads in the Czech Republic generally meet European standards; however, on side roads, drivers should be prepared to encounter uneven surfaces, irregular lane markings, and sign placements that are not clear. Streets in towns are not always in good condition. You should pay special attention to driving on cobblestone and among trams in historic city centers.

Czech law requires that drivers have their headlights on at all times when driving in the Czech Republic.  The law also requires that all private cars, including those of foreign visitors, carry one of each of the following items:

• fluorescent GREEN high visibility safety jacket for each occupant (kept in car)
• first aid kit
• spare pair of prescription glasses kept in the glove compartment (if necessary)
• warning triangle
• complete set of spare bulbs.

Czech law also allows for breathalyzer testing for drivers stopped by local law enforcement officials for any reason.  There is a zero-tolerance policy for alcohol and driving; driving with any trace of detected alcohol, however slight, is illegal.  If you plan to drive in the Czech Republic you should not drink alcoholic beverages before doing so.  Drivers could face an immediate fine or criminal justice proceedings.

A vignette (250 CZK / ~£8.50 for 10 days) must be purchased for motorway driving. These can be purchased from most Post Offices, petrol stations and from some bureaux de change and other outlets at the border.

SatNav Coordinates

For those travelling with SatNav I've compiled a list of all the places we're heading for, which I recommend you enter BEFORE setting off, as entering GPS coordinates is fiddly at the best of times!

Once I'd got the list i added them all to google maps (in the order that we're travelling to them) and the entire trip is actually 1,907m (31hrs driving) door to door!

Anyway here's the list of coordinates...


Hotels

• Eindhoven:  N 51° 27' 30.15"  E 5° 24' 26.20"
• Frankfurt:
• Espace:  N 50° 6' 7.62"    E 8° 39' 52.78"
• Support vehicles:  N 50° 7' 37.97''  E 8° 37' 52.24"
• Prague:  N 50° 4' 28.74"   E 14° 25' 34.04"
• Strasbourg: N 48° 35' 8.92"   E 7° 44' 35.62"

Tunnel

• UK Side:  N 51° 5' 44.12"   E 1° 7' 19.45"
• France Side: N 50° 56' 20.62"  E 1° 48' 52.06"

Racing Circuits

• Nürburgring:   N 50° 20' 8.00"   E 6° 56' 51.00"

Nürburgring here we come!

Any topgear or motorsport fan worth their salt should have an ambition to have a go at the infamous Nürburgring, and although i still can’t quite believe it, this Friday I'll be doing it in a 19 year old Renault Espace 2.1 Turbo Diesel!

Last year a mixture of fear for the espace’s reliability and rubbish geographic knowledge of Germany meant we missed the opportunity but upon discovering that the Nürburgring is almost on the way to Frankfurt its too good an opportunity to miss.

For the less informed amongst us, the Nürburgring, nicknamed The Green Hell by Jackie Stewart is widely considered the toughest, most dangerous and most demanding purpose-built racing circuit in the world.

The 14.173 mile Nordschleife (Northern Loop) section has remained a one-way, public toll-road for nearly 80 years except when it is closed off for testing purposes, training lessons, or racing events. Since its opening in 1927 the track has been used by the public for the so-called Touristenfahrten, i.e. anyone with a road legal car or motorcycle, as well as tour buses, motor homes, or cars with trailers can have a go for the princely sum of €22.

The circuit winds its way through the forested hills around the town of Nurburg and features 33 left and 40 right turns, with very little run off and only Armco barriers to stop you ploughing into the nearby trees…

After some research the track is open to the public between 1415 and 1930 this Friday so it’d be rude not to swing by and have a go ;) The current lap record is 6mins, 47.5 seconds set by a £1.3m Pagani Zonda R on the 29th June 2010 (video) but i don’t think that’s in any danger of being broken by a £0.000001m Renault Espace!

I’ve updated the boomerang rally site to feature the changes to the first day’s route, which can be seen here.

GPS and EU data

Last year we used our company blackberries to give a realtime tracking service that allowed friends and family to monitor our progress around europe. As you can see on the right of the new look blog we're doing the same again (there's a link to a page with more detailed maps above it). The only issue this year is cost, since we're paying our mobile bill when we get back, unlike last year. Fortunately Ross noticed that orange have introduced travel bundles so Ross and I have bought 30days of 12mb of roaming data which should be plenty for the tracking service and for posting to the log while on the move. Anything too data intensive can be done using the hotel wifi at the beginning and end of the day.

Also new EU rules force mobile operators to 'switch off' data once a customer gets to 16mb (12 for PAYG) meaning without bundles the most you'll get stung for in any one month is about £44 inc vat, a vast improvement on before when you could get home to a huge bill in excess of £1,000 if you were thick enough to download a blueray video while on holiday!

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Central Europe Maps

Having checked Ross's TomTom unit and realising it doesn't cover Prague due to it being 'UK & Western Europe' mild panic at the thought of paper-based map reading swept through us... Luckily one of the TomTom v8 maps I downloaded to my old smart phone for last years rally is 'western & central europe' so we're sorted. After a bit of 'calculating route' it informed me prague is 825miles and 13.5hrs away from Oxfordshire... Can't wait!!

P.s as u'll have noticed if you're on the rally I've added your email address to a list which automatically gets a notification whenever a post is added to the blog, if you'd rather not receive these, or know anyone else who would like to let me know...

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The countdown begins…

We’re now only five days away from Boomerang 2010!! First i need to apologise for not having made a single post since we left the tunnel almost a year ago… Many things have changed, we’ve suffered MOT failure which resulted in the espace being SORN for a few months (she was back on the road in time for Cornbury Festival at the beginning of July), we’ve lost a team member (Timmy) but gained another (Robbie) and gained a whole new team (they need a name!) consisting of a friend (Mossy) and his Dad who’ll be support vehicle #2 (a brand new Mini). The espace has also been involved in a ice related ‘incident’ with a wall causing slight cosmetic damage to the front and has moved home to live at Ross’s dad’s in Witney.

So with less than a week to go Ross, Tom and I performed the following routine task (all without the use of haynes manual this year!):

• Coolant/Anti-freeze change
• Oil change
• Oil filter change
• Air filter (cleaned & hoovered)
• Washer Fluid top-up
• Brake fluid top-up
• Power Steering fluid check
• Wheel Bolt check

Whilst carrying out the above we noticed that the turbo pipe fault we first spotted in Germany last year had worsened to the point where it had all but broken in half, causing oil to spray over the engine and valuable air pressure in the turbo to escape. Luckily the pipe had a fair bit of slack in it so using a knife i cut off the damaged end and re-attached it. The results in the test drive were impressive, quieter turbo (no-longer sounds like a distance police siren), less turbo lag and a faster accelerating espace :)

So with the prep work done we filled up with diesel (at a cost of £86.33, thanks Mr Tax Man!), reset the odometer and parked her up ready for Boomerang 2010 to begin…